


There's No Such Thing

by longwhitecoats



Category: Undisclosed Fandom, Young Lady With Unicorn - Raphael
Genre: Except for how much painters hate each other, Gen, Not even a little bit accurate, Renaissance Era, Unicorns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:55:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28311231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/longwhitecoats/pseuds/longwhitecoats
Summary: Or, Raphael and the No-Good Very Bad Day.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 19
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	There's No Such Thing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Toft](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toft/gifts).



Raphael hissed at the crowd of chattering apprentices in the hall. “What a noise!” He exclaimed. “And where is my model?”

“She’s here, sir,” one of the apprentices said eagerly. His eyes shifted sideways. “It’s just...”

“If this is a ploy to get more money out of me, both you and she can forget it.”

The apprentice shook his head. “It’s not that. It’s only—”

“Here she comes now,” another apprentice said, pointing, and then fell backward in a fit of giggles.

Up the stairs to the workshop came a girl with a dismal expression, leading a small white dog behind her. Occasionally it halted, and she tugged at its lead, eyes rolled heavenward. Clearly she had been doing this all the way to the studio.

Raphael shook his head. “Late,” he said. “I told the apprentices, we need the afternoon light to...”

He trailed off. The dog was not a dog at all, or else it was in the strangest costume he had ever seen. A little horn protruded from its forehead, and four little hooves clattered on the wood of the studio floor. It looked up at Raphael with an oddly intelligent, if slightly malevolent, expression. He realized with a start that it was mimicking his own face.

“What,” he said, “is _that_.”

“Ugggggggghhhhhhhhh,” said the model. “I don’t want to talk about it. Can we _please_ just start the session. The sooner we start the sooner it can be over.”

“Fine,” said Raphael, rubbing his eyes to dispel whatever illusion had overcome him. “In here.”

He showed her into the studio, and she sat dejectedly, pulling her pet into her lap with a plop.

“Put that down,” he snapped. “I paid for a beautiful young woman, not a menagerie.”

“Ugh,” she said. “Whatever. It’s your funeral.”

She put the creature down on the floor. There was a skittering sound as it disappeared behind some discarded canvases.

“Better,” said Raphael. He began to gather his colors. The tint of her hair contrasted well with the background he had planned. “What’s your name?”

“Nicola,” she said.

“What’s your dog’s name?”

“It’s not a dog and it’s not mine.”

Raphael snorted. “All right.” Lifting his pencil, he began to sketch out the lines of her face and gown. “Suppose—”

A crash came from the back of the studio. Raphael looked up to see a freshly painted study of the Palatino speared on a broken easel. Part of the easel swung back and forth with a creaking sound. Raphael swore loudly and dove for the little animal skittering away from the wreckage. “What the _hell_ ,” he said, holding it by the scruff of the neck like a cat. “I am going to throw this out the window.”

“He’ll just come back,” Nicola sighed. “Believe me, I tried.”

“Get it out of my studio,” Raphael barked. He held it out to her. “Out!”

Nicola shrugged and took the creature from him, her expression one of mere exhaustion. She trundled out. As they passed him, Raphael thought he heard someone chuckling.

When Nicola came back the next day, this time at the appointed hour, the creature was wearing a miniature silk cloak trimmed in fur.

“Absolutely not,” Raphael said. “No.”

“I’ll hold him,” Nicola said. “He won’t get into your stuff if I hold him.”

Raphael growled, tearing at his hair. “ _Fine_ ,” he said at last. “You may hold your horrible pet while I paint you.”

“I told you, he’s not my—”

“Not your pet, yes, I know. Why in the name of God do you have him?”

Nicola sighed. “I’m looking after him while Michaelangelo is away,” she said, and Raphael dropped his entire paint palette.

“While _Michaelangelo_ —no,” he said. “This is too ridiculous. I refuse.”

“He said he had to go pick up, like, a really big snake or something,” she added. “For the ceiling he’s doing.”

“Okay, stop talking. Pose. I don’t want to hear any more.”

“I was posing for part of his sketches and he just handed it to me,” Nicola went on, seemingly oblivious to Raphael’s distress. “He got it from some weavers. It kept messing with their looms or something. They tried putting, like, a little fence around it, but it got out again.”

Raphael bit his lip. “All right,” he said. “If Buonarroti wants to sabotage my studio, that’s fine. I’m sure His Holiness will be interested to hear that his pet painter is dealing in monsters.”

“Oh, I don’t think he paid them, if that’s what you mean,” Nicola said. “I think they actually paid him.”

They both looked down at the little creature, who returned their gazes with a toothy grin.

“I hate you,” Nicola sighed.

“If you can’t put it down,” Raphael said, “I’ll turn it into a dog.”

Nicola looked wistful. “I wish you really could. A dog would be nice. No horn to stab you with.”

The remainder of that day’s sitting passed without incident, and the next day’s was placid; the creature seemed docile enough when Nicola held it, though he heard shouts from his apprentices when it she let it run free as she left the workshop for the evening. But that night, as he did some of the detail work on the dog, his mind drifted, and he discovered to his displeasure that he had repainted the real creature on top of the innocent dog he’d intended to paint.

He laid his head against the nearest wall and groaned. “I have been cursed,” he said to himself. “Michaelangelo has cursed me. What am I to do?”

By the time Nicola arrived the next day, her little monster in tow and looking rather smug, Raphael had an idea.

“I thought we might go outside today,” he added. “Would you both come with me?”

The walked for some time until they came to a well-lit spot near the Tiber. Nicola sat, holding her charge on her lap, and Raphael painted happily, whistling.

When he was nearly finished, he waved to a nearby boatman whom he had sent an apprentice to pay off that morning. “Say,” he said, as if the idea had just occurred to him, “where are you traveling?”

The boatman replied in rough Italian that he was bound home for Edinburgh – which Raphael knew, since he had asked his apprentice to find the merchant bound for the furthest distant location.

“My niece would like to send a present to a friend of mine,” said Raphael. “If it’s not too much trouble.” He turned to Nicola with a questioning head tilt.

“Oh, yeah, I don’t care,” she said, handing over the creature. “Michaelangelo definitely isn’t coming back for him.”

They shook hands and departed, leaving the creature in the stern of the boat, looking unaccountably pleased with itself.

“Better just to forget about it,” Raphael said. “Pretend it never existed.”

Nicola waved her hands in a _Whatever_ gesture. “I’m going home to clean,” she said. “You have no idea what it did to my house.”

Raphael finished the painting not long after, and when it was done, he thought of sending it to Michaelangelo as a gift, but he knew it would make him far too happy. “You just wait, motherfucker,” he muttered. “Give it time. I’ll get my revenge. I’ll get my hands on a _dragon_.”

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my beta, Dr_Whom. One historical note: the painting was probably done in Florence, but it's funnier if this is Michaelangelo's prank on Raphael while he's living in Rome.


End file.
